I’m not a Cubs hater … I don’t dislike the Cubs. If my White Sox were not in it, I would be rooting for the Cubs.

- Barack Obama, on “Mike and Mike” this morning

PAUL SUNDAY. What church do you belong to?

DANIEL PLAINVIEW. I, uh … I enjoy all things. I don’t belong to one church in particular. I like them all. I like everything.

- There Will Be Blood

Since the Senator’s comment this morning, I’ve spoken with a White Sox fan and a Cubs fan about it. They’re disgusted, they call him a fair-weather fan, and one went as far as to say that today, only today, he realized that Obama is a politician after all.

Rooting for both the Cubs and the White Sox, of course, is anathema to most baseball fans, but it shouldn’t be. It’s the sort of pick-a-side-we’re-at-war nonsense that doesn’t get us anywhere in life, but somehow is commonly at the core of sports fanhood. If you love a team, you are expected to hate its rivals, whether real or imagined.

And I submit that the Cubs-Sox rivalry is more imagined than real. There are the two standard interleague series, there is the traditional preseason series between the two teams, and there’s the Pierzynski-Barrett awkward slap-off, but the alleged essence of the rivalry is two teams in the same city, perpetually struggling to win the hearts of its citizens. This is manufactured. There is enough love in our hearts for two teams, and anyone who says otherwise is selling something. And they’re such good salesman that they can sell stupid-looking shirts on Racine that depict White Sox players shoving baseball bats up their butts. It takes some kind of hustle to market shirts like those to self-respecting adults.

Each person enjoys the right to enjoy his or her own fanhood, and if your fanhood requires conflict, hatred, or supplemental theater, more power to you. But it shouldn’t be necessary to extend that conflict toward fans who choose to go in a different direction with this same liberty.

On another note: in 2000, while vetting Bush on the campaign trail, the media grilled him on baseball rosters.. He aced it. I’m really hoping that if pressed, Obama will at least be able cite Carlos Quentin as his team’s MVP, and not, like, Frank Thomas or Albert Belle.